If the Government says Pesticides are safe, are they?
The concepts that pesticides are safe based on the claims of laborious scientific assessment are false. And now, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has found lapses in the strictness of Canada’s pesticide assessment process. Pesticide use is managed by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA). The PMRA is required to reassess the safety of pesticides every 15 years; however there is a backlog of more than 80 chemicals that are not reassessed. Also the agency is not considering the “cumulative effects” of pesticides on human health. The PMRA uses “conditional” registrations of pesticides allowing companies to sell products before risk assessments are done. The slow valuation process means the product maybe unsafe. Currently, 36 of the 80 pest control products that are currently conditionally registered are neonicotinoids, suspected of causing ecological damage i.e. impact on bees. And finally, the PMRA slowly cancels the registration of pesticides considered to have unacceptable risks to allow suppliers and users to exhaust their inventories. Lengthy delays in cancelling the registration of pesticides that pose unacceptable risks will prolong the time that workers, the public, and the environment are exposed to these risks. So, are Canadians and the environment at risk?
